Texas Gov. Rick Perry said Monday he is deploying up to 1,000 National Guard troops in coming months to the Texas-Mexico border to combat a surge of immigrants crossing the U.S. border illegally.

“I will not stand idly by while our citizens are under assault and little children from Central America are detained in squalor,” Perry said. “We are too good a country for that to occur. That is why today I am using my executive authority as governor of Texas and activating the National Guard.”

On today’s The Five, Greg Gutfeld, Bob Beckel, Kimberley Guilfoyle, Jesse Watters and Dana Perino discussed the deployment and its implications on the border crisis.

Watters called it a long overdue step, assessing Obama’s “catch and release” policy with illegal immigrants as a dangerous failure, while Gutfeld suggested the president doesn’t understand the importance of borders.

“Every major crisis around the world – Israel, Ukraine, Iraq – it’s about a border,” Gutfeld said. “Still, the president fails to see the value of a border here … He actually doesn’t see it as a crisis, because I think he sees the influx of citizens as a way to dilute the nationalism and exceptionalism of the United States.”

Perino noted that deploying the National Guard at the border is not unprecedented – President George W. Bush sent 6,000 troops to border states in 2006 and, in 2010, Obama himself sent troops to the border – but stated it would still take more to solve such a massive problem.

“The National Guard … is for emergencies and should be temporary,” Perino said. “Unless there is a policy change, I don’t see how this situation continues to be temporary or an emergency.”

Beckel pointed to the many resources Obama has thrown at the border crisis, from expanded fences to more border patrol officers. Perino countered that Obama needs to work on policy change, instead of asking for nearly $4 billion to contain the border surge.

Guilfoyle concluded that Obama's actions on the border simply haven't been adequate. “He’s got to do more than if that wasn’t sufficient," she said. "If someone’s bleeding out on the operating table, get in. Put all hands in. Anything you can do to stop the bleeding.”

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff of California said that "people have suffered enough" because of President Trump and that a real leader would re-open the part of the government that has been shuttered since December.